tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59405452008-01-01T14:26:07.666ZFredBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-45989355393487042342008-01-01T14:04:00.000Z2008-01-01T14:26:07.689Z

A sad story from Italy appeared today, the first day of 2008, in La Repubblica. A guy was celebrating the New Year with his family on the 9th floor of an apartment block in Torre Annunziata, just south of Naples, when a stray bullet came through the window at 11:15pm on Capodanno (New Year's Eve). He was actually inside the apartment, sitting at the dining table, when he just collapsed on the

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-12269222367184403092007-11-28T19:12:00.000Z2007-11-28T19:34:16.198Z

This made me laugh. According to La Repubblica today [1], a Ryanair flight out of Rome's Ciampino airport was held up for 2 hours on account of a soft toy, to wit one massive soft crocodile, so large that it stretched out over 3 seats. Quite how the passenger got such a large toy on as 'hand luggage' is a mystery only Ciampino security could answer, but when she did and laid it out on seats in

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-90193669629535272812007-08-10T10:28:00.000+01:002007-08-10T10:45:49.885+01:00

Here's a shaggy dog story from Italy, reported today on the La Repubblica website. A 737 of the Romanian airline Blue Air, due to fly from Fiumicino to Bucharest, was taxiing to the runway when passengers saw a dog racing alongside the aircraft. Surprising enough, but a real shock to one passenger, Stoica Ionut, whose dog it was. He (the man, not the dog) alerted the flight crew immediately, and

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1154685747527511852006-08-04T10:29:00.000+01:002006-08-04T11:02:27.540+01:00

From the tail wagging the dog department: a hotelier in the Italian Dolomites, an area of dramatic limestone peaks and pasture, has filed suit against a farmer claiming €56,000 in damages for loss of custom. How so? Because she reckons that the hundreds of cow bells on the farmer's herd are disturbing her clients peace and quiet and putting them off staying at her hotel. Even though herders in

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1154369336378671852006-07-31T18:35:00.000+01:002006-08-01T17:20:44.393+01:00

Here's a short commentary from the Misteri d'Italia newsletter, written by left-wing Italian journalists, that sums up my feelings on the destruction and death being wrought by the Israeli military on the long-suffering Lebanese people. The last line has it exactly: between the terrorism of Palestinian extremists and that of the Israeli military there is no difference at all. As for why Israel

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1148937562560984512006-05-29T22:05:00.000+01:002006-05-29T22:19:22.576+01:00

...before you get on your motorbike. That's the moral of the story which appeared in La Repubblica's online edition today, which told of a major traffic hold-up on a motorway near Taranto, in the heel of Italy, caused not by a traffic accident but by "manna piovuta dal cielo" - manna raining from heaven. The rucksack of a motorcyclist had come undone, and from it fell some €20,000 of cash, to the

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1148248879258041222006-05-21T22:10:00.000+01:002006-05-21T23:01:19.273+01:00

I don't play computer games these days, not because I turn my nose up at them, or think that they're not a patch on the games I used to play in the 80s (Galaxian, Centipede, Donkey Kong, and the wonderful Escher-esque Marble Madness), but simply because I just don't have the time. Games these days seem to be 'life experiences' that you have to spend every waking leisure hour at in order to get to

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1144231429807802012006-04-05T10:36:00.000+01:002006-04-05T15:56:27.556+01:00

Il Buffone - sorry, 'Il Cavaliere' - does it again. He was reported as saying the other day that anyone who voted for the Left in the coming Italian elections is a "coglione", which literally translates in English to "ball" or "testicle", but a more colloquial translation might be "bollock". As ever, he sought to minimise his words after the event, once again implausibly invoking his ineffable

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1143630503058639572006-03-29T11:36:00.000+01:002006-03-29T12:08:23.086+01:00

Never the most stable of people at the best of times, Silvio Berlusconi ("Il Cavaliere", as he's dubbed by the Italian Press) yesterday lost it completely in the heat of the Italian election campaign. Like much of the Italian Right, he's obsessed with "communisti" (that is, anyone to the left of Forza Italia), and this spilled over into absurdity when, on Sunday, he stated baldly that Chinese

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1139159453144646822006-02-05T16:38:00.000Z2006-02-05T17:10:53.196Z

From the "Bleedin' obvious facts that have to be repeated" department comes a fine article in the Grauniad which reminds us that capitalism is inherently environmentally destructive: "Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. It is predicated on infinitely expanding markets, faster consumption and bigger production in a finite planet." ("It's capitalism or a habitable planet - you can't

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1138571178867798682006-01-29T21:16:00.000Z2006-01-29T21:46:18.926Z

Yesterday I popped into a branch of Sainsbury's, something I usually avoid for a whole bunch of reasons, to get a couple of things I can't get elsewhere, such as my favourite brand of fags. As I was hanging about at the checkout trying to keep my patience in the middle-class feeding frenzy my eye was caught by a display right by the conveyor belt. This announced, in bright colours and big fonts,

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1130526833702913932005-10-28T19:41:00.000+01:002005-10-28T20:19:31.403+01:00

On Channel 4 news yesterday evening there was a report on the government's proposed smoking ban in public places, after which some dimwit professor of health (or somesuch) from a C-list university was dragged on as a pundit. I can't remember his name, which is a shame because he showed an awful ignorance of why people smoke, in a typically arrogant middle-class moralist way. At one point, after

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1123080004455982472005-08-03T15:22:00.000+01:002005-08-16T16:08:26.990+01:00

The Suit buzzword of the noughties just has to be "solution". Every product and service is a "solution", not a mundane product or service. This came to mind because I've just spent a couple of days looking for an 'Image Management System' (ie image library software) and got seriously fed up with seeing "solution" used everywhere instead of the plain old word "software". The only honourable

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1119863946273489362005-06-27T10:08:00.000+01:002005-06-27T10:19:06.356+01:00

From the "You couldn't make it up" Department. According to a report in today's La Repubblica online, in 1941 Hitler ordered that each soldier be supplied with a blow-up sex doll in his rucksack, to be his (the soldier's) "fiancé" so as to take care of his "sexual needs", save him from VD, and preserve "the purity of the race". The plan was only dropped after the Allies bombed the Dresden factory

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1116958883251230602005-05-24T19:20:00.000+01:002005-05-24T19:21:23.290+01:00

There was a heart-warming romantic story in yesterday's Grauniad, about a couple very much in love, who'd produced two children together, but who'd been separated by cruel circumstance - one had been imprisoned for many years, but the other faithfully waited for her, and they married on Friday just gone (20th May). Not too unusual you'd think, so why was it in the newspaper? Well, because, when

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1116237773921007652005-05-16T10:21:00.000+01:002005-06-01T20:05:32.330+01:00

Now here's a funny thing. In an ex-Soviet Union country, a popular demonstration takes place in its capital city against a corrupt regime led by an autocratic president known to be a serial committer of 'human rights abuses', such as imprisonment without trial, and torture and disappearances of political opponents, to mention but a few. The kleptocratic regime hasn't even a figleaf of "democratic

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1113828305884115492005-04-18T13:39:00.000+01:002005-04-18T13:45:05.886+01:00

An article in today's La Repubblica (link above) describes a bizarre 'movement' which aims to get everyone in the Western hemisphere to jump at the same time on a day next year, which will supposedly nudge the Earth into a new orbit further from the Sun, thus mitigating the effects of global warming. You can either shake your head at the sheer weirdness of it, if true, or at the audacity of the

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1113409717917106682005-04-13T17:21:00.000+01:002005-04-13T18:03:50.533+01:00

A while back I was reading the Guardian tabloid bit in the loo, the best place for the light confectionary that normally appears in G2. There was an article about Charlotte Bronte being a 'bad girl', called "Reader, I shagged him", which although I've never read any Bronte was vaguely interesting. One quote in it did catch my eye. When describing the sheer tedium of her life as a schoolteacher,

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1107200090256963732005-01-31T19:14:00.000Z2005-01-31T19:48:13.793Z

Reading the Italian centre-left newspaper La Repubblica in the pub a few days back (pretenzioso, io?) to try to preserve my Italian from terminal rust, I came across a lovely little snippet buried in the Cronaca (stories) section, which related how an advertising agency in Rome had launched a campaign which promised "a unique opportunity to get your business known". How? By organising false

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1099503052546463422004-11-03T17:16:00.001Z2004-11-03T19:06:50.653Z

My sister just sent me the link above, to a wonderful collection of sayings from weary parents, including such gems as: "Before children, luxury is a day at a spa. Afterwards it's having a bowel movement without someone shouting at you through the door. " "The male incapacity to keep hands and willy apart starts at a distressingly young age. " "Children don't actually die if they eat

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1088977145937559982004-07-04T22:34:00.000+01:002004-07-04T22:39:05.936+01:00

So Greece win yet another Euro 2004 game 1-0, scoring a crap goal from a corner as they did against the Czechs, and they win the tournament. All the bookies are jumping up and down as the 150-1 outsider scrapes home, but the world of football will be in mourning. Where Portugal and the Czechs and France all had skill in abundance, inventiveness, imagination, flair, and attacking vision, all the

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1086025447309531282004-05-31T16:59:00.000+01:002004-07-05T17:23:57.856+01:00

With the football European Championship, now known as UEFA EURO 2004™ (love the trademark symbol - says it all about modern football as a business), due to kick off on June 12th, England (not Britain) is being gripped by an epidemic of flags of St George flying from windows, plastered on pub fronts, and most irritatingly stuck to cars, just as happened two years ago in the World Cup. Brace

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1083002426321416042004-04-26T19:00:00.000+01:002004-04-26T19:13:21.153+01:00

So suddenly we're going to have national, compulsory identity cards with "biometric" information. Just a few days back the BBC reports that trials are about to start on cards with the idea of making them compulsory in 10 years, then Diddy David Blunkett, who sounds more like a Sun-reading cabbie with every day that passes, blitzes us today with the news that yes, ID cards are coming, they'll be

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-1082644557730664132004-04-22T15:35:00.000+01:002004-04-22T15:45:11.216+01:00

According to a report in The Guardian, the University of Bradford's Dept of Peace Studies, of which I'm a graduate, has taken money from the Ministry of Defence, some £650k, to put 600 officers through residential courses. Kind of a strange interpretation of the word "peace", I'd have thought. In my day, 84-87, a good third of the undergraduate intake, including myself, were peace and political

Fredtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5940545.post-107728517979009572004-02-20T13:52:00.000Z2004-02-20T13:56:50.950Z

Another one to file under "Only in Berlusconi's Italy". The latest outburst of Il Cavaliere, who should really be nicknamed "Il Buffone", took place yesterday when on an official visit to Athens. He called politicians, in essence, bent thieves who steal their wealth from citizens. Now that is seriously rich from a guy who's probably the dirtiest politician in Europe, and who's only escaped

Fred